However, Davis’ ability to put Attorney General Greg Abbott, her Republican opponent for Governor, on the defensive over the equal pay legislation, seems to have pushed the narrative of the ‘bumbling, incompetent campaign’ into the background, at least for now.

“The politics of this are such that it’s hard not to look at this as a win for the Davis campaign, not because it’s going to determine anything in the long run, but because it halts the narrative that the campaign isn’t accomplishing anything with the media,” said Jim Henson, the director of the Texas Politics Project at the University of Texas at Austin. “That’s a little insidery” (which makes it perfect for the Texas Politics blog) “but it’s an important frame here. If you want talk about what the politics of this are, that’s a big, immediate gain for the Davis camp.”

“Everyday, that there’s a story that the Davis campaign is driving that’s about defining Greg Abbott, is another day that goes by without yet another story… in the plot line that had been really gaining momentum: that the Davis campaign was really disappointing,” he added. “So now, the growing trope, unless they run into trouble again, is that the campaign has righted itself, because they are making substantive, and reasonably well-covered” (in terms of news coverage) “attacks on Abbott’s policy positions, in areas that probably matter to targeted areas of voters.”

He made the remarks as part of an interview I did with him for a story that ran in the morning’s paper, which found that minorities are underrepresented in key positions in the Attorney General’s office, and that minorities on average make less than their Anglo coworkers.